


embodiment of pride

by midnight_cowboy



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Demonic Possession, Drabble, Dream Demon, Gen, but also quite possibly, it was all a dream, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 02:48:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20369407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnight_cowboy/pseuds/midnight_cowboy
Summary: It had to stop.(but Carver was her pride)





	embodiment of pride

It had to stop.

It shouldn't have even started--

But Marian listens to the words of Pride with an unnatural hunger and cannot stop, cannot help but absorb all the proposed attention, and cannot do anything but desire all that power, which, by the command of her staff, flows readily into her hands.

And Pride smiles when Hawke resorts to blood magic for the first time, and asks her how did the goodie two-shoes sink so readily to this level. The demon smiles so much like the person whom it portrays, that it's immediately visible - this is a copy, a Pride-sized cast; but Marian allows herself to be deceived.

Her Pride is embodied in him - in its entirety, down to the last tiniest drop.

In Carver. Who died - _left her_ \- on the Deep Roads, and who never was able to do all the things that he wanted in life for himself.

“I'm doing this for Carver", she tells herself, clutching Meeran’s head, whom the younger brother had once hated, in a stone fist Spell. Carver smiles in her dreams, and jokes that perhaps it’s worth destroying all the evil people in the world in his honour.

“I'm doing this for Carver", she tells herself, continuing to live after Leandra’s murder, continuing to do magic and hate it at the same time. Carver shakes his head and clicks his tongue, but still smiles, is still nearby, and strokes her hair at night before Marian finally falls asleep.

“I'm doing this for Carver", she tells herself, plucking Viscount's crown off the bloodied floor with the tip of her staff and throwing it under Meredith’s feet. Carver lets out a laugh, and asks his sister to either temper her ardor, or take everything into her own hands and actually do _something_.

"I... why am I doing this?" - Marian wonders with a tiny bit of clinging dread when she wakes up one day and realizes that her memories are full of gaps as if her mind a holey sieve; and later on has to find out that Orsino and Meredith were brutally murdered by someone unknown, and Hawke is now the only rightful candidate for the role of Viscount of Kirkwall.

Carver laughs when she faints upon realising, upon recognizing what that utter exhaustion in her body means. A powerful hand intercepts her inner magical current - her brother’s hand.

"Ah, the horrors of a mortal being! 'It shouldn't have even started' - but you _knew_ from the very beginning what you were bargaining for!" - Carver laughs uproariously, ridiculously happy, as if they're back in those days when their father had not yet fallen to sickness.

Marian can't move. Can't say a word.

Carver cradles her face in his palms  
squeezes the head  
cracks her skull  
breaks her being  
takes over a fragile shell

And Hawke wakes up.

**Author's Note:**

> a translation of one of my old works I still like somewhat. originally it was an experimentation with sentence form, remnants of which you can still see right there in the end. I butchered it for English! 
> 
> oh and someone while reading originally told me that this could be interpreted as Hawke waking up after a nightmare, which would be possessed by a demon who looks like Carver, so if you wanna calm yourself with that explanation, you're welcome. 
> 
> [rinnannon](https://twitter.com/rinnannon) on twitter if you wanna yell at me


End file.
